pasture ducks & electric poultry netting

   / pasture ducks & electric poultry netting #1  

Michelle K linnane

Gold Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2007
Messages
282
Location
Esperance NY
Tractor
JD 4103
Hi Guys
Have been raising my baby ducks in the barn and now moved them out side trying to get them acclimated to the outside and weather. I was going to make a pvc moveable pen and I thought why bother I will use a dog kennel and place a top on it. I 2X4 on the inside the kennel tie a rope to a 10 x10 and I kennel pull with the mule, gater, ATV or tractor. I have gotten some
1 X 1 plastic hardware cloth and placed it over the 2 inch chain link fence about 48 inches up. If a weasel wants to get nothing will keep them out. but the birds can not stick their head through and have an owl snap it off.
I bought some electric poultry netting from agway yesterday made kencove. My plan is to place the ducks out in the fields. Right now they are on wire and they waste so much food, plus ducks eat almost 2 to 3 times from then a chicken. They are the hogs of the feathered world. I want to work them close to the ponds so it seems like their home in that area. But I want to be able to move the birds so they can move about and eat. Ducks take a while to fly and will pretty much stay where there is water and food.
I have never used an electric fence and I want to be able to use house electric and solar. I will set up the fence so I just need to drive them back in the kennel at night ducks are not hard to drive and I will set up electric in a type of chute so they are easy to get back in. They will only be out when I am home as I can nothing about sky predators. But I know I need a ground but do I need to buyt two different units for house electric and solar. Has anybody else set up pasture for poultry? Also I have been looking at solar stuff for fence holy cow it seems expensive. on the kencove site the Solar Panel Kit 18 Watt is $491.00 then you some 18 watt solar for $120. What is the difference I do not want to find out after I bought the solar panel that is not good? Any ideas or anything I have missed? I am sure there is people on this forum who know a lot more about this then I. Your thoughts are welcome.
 
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   / pasture ducks & electric poultry netting #2  
Have 7 ducks 3 geese and 22 ducklings at present and all we do is pen them up at night. Have just regular 1x2 galvy wire fence, and some chicken wire in places. we also use fishing string for our cover just woven back and forth over the top to keep the raptors out. The pen is fairly predator proof which was our goal During the day we allow the ducks to roam at will. the ducks will keep the slug population in check as we live in pac NW, and the geese keep the grass trimed. you are right in the birds will stay near the water to rest and if danger appears such as a hawk or coyote. Have lost a few birds to predators, though we try to even the score when we can. The ducks we have lost generally got out at night some how and we believe the goose was defending the mom and babies at the time. The nice thing is with them wandering you know when something is approaching as the geese make a hellava racket, when they spot something. Which is good as we raise pastured broilers and have not lost any due to predators thanks in part to the geese, alerting us. Just need to pay attention when the squaking begins, time to run outside. I do use the electric poultry netting just to keep the geese off the back porch, this way we can enjoy the porch with out the mess.
 
   / pasture ducks & electric poultry netting #3  
We use the poultry net and perma net products from Premier for our chickens and our garden. I started out with a Gallagher S20 solar fence energizer which worked well for a couple thousand feet of polywire/tape for our horses. This unit is 0.2 Joules and not powerful enough to use with poultry netting. The poultry net is in contact with the ground, grass, and weeds and needs a much more powerful energizer. Mowing the grass where you will put the fence helps reduce the loading.

I bought the AC/DC Speedrite 1000 unit (1 Joule max output) from our local farmers co-op to use with our poultry net. I think a 1 Joule output energy unit is about the minimum you can use with poultry netting. This unit can be plugged in to a household 120 VAC outlet, or you can run it off a 12 V DC battery. I bought a deep cycle 105 Amp-Hours 12 V battery at Walmart which I use to run this energizer.

Take a look at this link:
Speedrite 1000 Energizer - Premier1Supplies

This is the energizer that I have, they also offer it in a 2J, 3J, 6J, and 12J output model.
The link shows how much power it takes to run, how long you can go between charging, how many poultry nets it can power, etc.

With a battery system you need a way to keep the battery charged. I have a battery charger that I started with, it will charge the battery up in a few hours. My system can operate for about 3 or 4 weeks before the battery needs to be charged. My energizer has a light that flashes when it pulses the fence and it shows the battery charge level.

I'm now using a small solar panel to charge the battery and this works very well. If you go with a more powerful energizer it will need a larger solar panel and a possibly a charge controller.

You will need a ground system. I use a single ground rod and it works fine with our soil. Some systems or soils will require more than one ground rod. If you will be moving your system frequently make sure you can easily remove the ground rod.

You will need to test your system, I have one of those LED fence testers and I try to keep at least 3000 or 4000 V on the fence.

The system does not have to be expensive. My energizer was just over $100, the battery was about $75, and you may have or can buy a battery charger for $30. I'm using the solar panel from my gallagher charger now, premier sells a 10W solar panel for $90 but you might find better pricing elsewhere.
 
   / pasture ducks & electric poultry netting
  • Thread Starter
#4  
Well I got dog kennel moved and setup. Use some sch 80 2 inch and 1 inch I had along with chicken wire over the top, and used a green plastic 1 by 1 netting along the bottom, should be pretty good. There is a small tarp to provide so protection from sun and rain.

I had them in a a 3 X 8 foot pen off the ground I am thinking of turning this into and out door brooder. Insulate with blue board and wood tops and a place for a heat lamp in each roof. I zip tie card board to keep draft off birds for the first few weeks. I made it look kind of a mess. But cardboard and zip ties are free. It is well built and when I placed the cardboard on the sides. Floor is 1/2 inch hardware cloth and sides are 1X1 and the top is 2X 2 squares. rThere is two lids. This is so well built I move it with the forks on Tractor. Today I moved the ducks into new pen and used the tractor take brooding pen down to new area. Will pull cardboard off and take some better pictures of the pen for those who might be interested.

I think I am going to get three Embden Goslings to place in with the ducks as a type of watch dog. They are all small righ now and hopefully they will get along, by being let out during the day should take some of the fire out of them and be more willing to go back in the pen. The one things with ducks is they heard. Get one duck moving the way you want and there is a stamepe. This is a mixture of call ducks 1/2 call ducks and Roen, mallards. I have wanted call ducks for a long time and now I have some.

I will lay out poultry neting tonight mow the path the wire is on to make sure the birds can not escape of do not have good contact. The ducks are very happy to be in grass, good they went crazy as soon as they got in it. It must feel good to be out of the cage and on the ground. The pultry fence is leaning on the kennel.
 

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